


a flagrant misuse of diplomatic immunity

by the_garbage_will_do



Series: reyuxmas [6]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Jedi Ben Solo, New Year's Eve, Padawan Rey, Secret Relationship, Senator Armitage Hux, hints of Kylux, hints of reylo, probably pre-reylux, sequel characters in the prequel era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-31
Updated: 2019-12-31
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:42:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22047331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_garbage_will_do/pseuds/the_garbage_will_do
Summary: “Master Ben’s looking for me, right now.” Rey can feel him stumbling around, out of place amidst the glitzy crowds, unable to quite place her in the mental chaos.She can feel the instant Hux’s recklessness overtakes his good sense. He dives back in, running his lips down the length of her neck. “Let him.”“He’ll catch us,” she says, red-cheeked and breathless. “He’ll turn me in to the Jedi Council and it’ll be the scandal of the century—”“And I’ll rescue you and spirit you back to Arkanis, and keep you wet all the time.”
Relationships: Armitage Hux/Rey, background Poe Dameron/Finn
Series: reyuxmas [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1620592
Comments: 19
Kudos: 109
Collections: Reyuxmas 2019





	a flagrant misuse of diplomatic immunity

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Reyuxmas's Week 6 prompt, "New Year's."

The lift takes Rey’s breath away. It’s not the ascension that winds her— mere mechanical speed can’t scare a pilot of her caliber— nor the glittering grace of Coruscant’s skyline, magma streams and neon signs spread like jewels below her feet. She’s dizzied just by what awaits her above.

She can feel the gala even before the doors open. A dazzling cocktail of all the sharpest political minds in the galaxy, the Damerons’ New Years Ball is the most famous party on Coruscant and therefore the most famous in the galaxy. The sheer mental brilliance in the room nearly knocks Rey back into the lift. The political insights and intrigue explode like the bubbling champagne bottle someone pops right in front of her, cork shooting across her field of view.

She lifts her head and steps right in.

Gold. That’s all she can see at the start— gold dresses, gold robes, golden light from the massive chandelier. All around revelers sip their golden liquor and laugh, locked up in philosophical conversations and power plays in a world above her. They split her focus in a hundred directions, their clamor deafening in the Force.

“You made it back to Coruscant!” All the eyes in the room turn as Senator Finn Dameron dashes straight to her, royal blue cape rippling behind him. 

“Just got off the ship an hour ago.”

“It’s a delight as always to see you in one piece.”

“Master Ben hasn’t throttled me just yet,” she reports merrily.

“Rey!” Poe weaves through the crowd, dashing in precisely the same suit as his husband. “Always good to have a strong Jedi presence, once the alcohol starts flowing. Is this your first time here?”

“Yes,” she answers with a minxish smile. “Two years back as I recall, there was no gala.”

That party had been cancelled in honor of the Damerons’ honeymoon. An automatic grin spreads across Poe’s face, and he brushes his hand down Finn’s back. Finn beams too before asking, “What about last year?”

“Off-world,” she recalls. “I had a mission to Arkanis.”

At the sound of “Arkanis,” both the Senators wince in sympathy.

Finn says, “I’m sorry you got stuck in that weather.”

“And with those people,” Poe adds, ignoring how Finn diplomatically jabs him in the ribs.

To their surprise, her smile only blossoms. “The people were more than worth the trouble, and I may be the first person in history to say this, but...I like the weather on Arkanis.”

“Indeed,” comes a new voice, a bladed Coruscanti accent cutting sharp through the rest of the party’s din, at once demanding Rey’s full concentration. “She doesn’t mind being soaked unexpectedly, at all hours.”

Though the Damerons surely miss it, Rey hears a smile in those words. Finn looks to where someone new’s crept up just behind her, perhaps inappropriately close.

“You know each other?” he says warily.

“Ready to protect the innocent Padawan?” retorts Senator Armitage Hux of Arkanis.

“I’ve seen her fight,” Poe spits back. “She can take the likes of you.”

Blushing, Rey quickly intervenes. “Hux is why I was on Arkanis. I was temporarily assigned to provide extra security.”

“A truly unusual number of people were trying to kill me,” Hux elaborates.

“Can’t imagine why,” Poe says quietly.

Not quietly enough. Hux’s voice cools to ice when he replies, “Excuse me?”

“You’ve softened this year, but we all know you’re from the same mold as your dad.” Poe takes a menacing step towards him. “The same contagious strain of loud-mouthed warmongering sociopa—”

“You’re lucky,” Armitage briskly interrupts, “that I resolved not to start any wars this past year. I’ll have to table this discussion until _after_ the bell tolls.”

“Hey!” Finn says, “This is our house, if you throw around threats then I’ll—”

“All right, Jedi peacekeeper here,” Rey says, inserting herself between the three of them and unsubtly linking her arm with Hux’s. “Senator Hux, why don’t you tell me about all your current machinations?”

Hux shoots one last acid glance at the Damerons but lets her steer him away, into the next hall over. “What machinations? All my rivals have given up trying to kill me. I’m both offended and bored.”

She glares at him, her arm still snug around his. “You’re lucky, is what you are. I wouldn’t have been around to save you this time.”

“I suppose—” he gives a dramatic sigh— “freeing all the slaves on Hosnia was also a worthy use of your time.”

Rey hums agreeably. “It was, though I’m afraid I went a little bit off-script at the end.”

“I’m sure your master was shocked.”

“Ben’s still on Hosnia,” she confesses, “trying to explain why the explosions I set off were necessary.”

“And why were the explosions you set off necessary?” Hux deadpans.

“Because if I hadn’t set them, I’d still be there for the start of the year, not here. And I wanted so badly to be here.”

He chuckles. She links their arms a little tighter, and they fall into a companionable silence, drifting together through the celebration. Stares linger on the odd couple, mismatched not just in height. A Senator dressed too darkly for the festivities, in black brocade richly embroidered with silver. A Jedi Padawan with no known last name and not a speck of glitter to adorn her, only a modest white tunic and three buns on the back of her head, interwoven with a ribbon on one side and her Padawan braid on the other.

Focused wholly on each other, they pay the gawkers no mind.

“I heard they’ve got a tradition here,” Rey says abruptly. “Kissing at midnight, when the bell tolls.”

“And what lucky soul are you targeting?” Hux replies. He gestures subtly to a woman across the room— Bazine Netal, the unspoken spymaster of Coruscant, clad in clinging white-and-black lace. “She’d be an excellent choice, if you’ll risk the knife between your ribs.”

With her free hand, Rey swats his shoulder.

“I forgot,” he continues with increasing mischief. “The Jedi have that vow of celibacy.”

“And who are you planning to ensnare?” Rey gracefully twists the conversation about. “I hear _such rumors_ about you and the new Senator from Parnassos.”

He looks at her in genuine surprise. “Phasma? My attachment is solely to her remarkably ample...nuclear facilities.”

“So you came to the gala,” Rey concludes, slowly steering them both towards a quieter hallway. “Thinking you might have no one at all to kiss at midnight.”

They each throw the other a canny sideways glance. 

Hux shrugs and looks away once more. “I’m far too heartless to take notice of frivolities.”

With a wave of her hand, she opens the door of a closet beside the hallway and inelegantly pushes him inside.

“No frivolities?” she says, raising her eyebrows as she follows him in. “Good thing I’m so very serious.”

“About...”

With another wave of her hand, she manipulates the control panel and locks down the door behind them, shutting out the rest of the world.

His eyebrows jump. “An _ambush_?”

“And you walked right into it,” she declares, beaming.

“A grave dereliction of duty—” he narrows his eyes— “by a once-devoted guard.”

“Perhaps you’d better have a word.”

“I have it on good authority I can have more than that.”

He whirls her about, pressing her to the wall. She presses back, lifting her hands to the black brocade of his collar, perilously close to his bare throat.

“I hoped you’d wear this,” she whispers.

“What, this rag? I picked it at random.”

He smirks at her scowl, a foreign sparkle in his ice-gray eyes.

“Whereas,” he continues, tipping her chin back with one pale finger, “I knew you’d be wearing this...”

His hands slide down her hips, caressing for just a moment before slipping under the gauzy folds of her pure white tunic.

“Seeing how the Jedi don’t let you wear more than two colors,” he finishes with more than a little bitterness.

“Are you _still_ angry I can’t wear black in public?”

“Quite,” Hux murmurs throatily. “You could conquer worlds in black.”

She jerks him down by his silk collar.

“I’ll settle for borrowing your greatcoat,” she breathes warm against his lips, “and conquering you.”

She pulls him down one inch more and claims him in a greedy kiss.

His restraint shatters a second later, and he replies in kind, his impatience surpassing hers. In one fluid motion he hoists her up onto a dresser and steps forward to stand between her thighs. Rey breaks away and quickly undresses herself— the advantage of simple Jedi clothing. Then she dives in for another drowning kiss while her hands snake up his robe and undo the intricate fasteners.

Panting, he comes up for air. “How do you know I won’t rebel?”

“You’ll remember I was there, one year ago.” She pushes his robe off his shoulders, sending it tumbling onto the floor with a rustle. “When you looked down at me in precisely this coat and promised—”

“Not to tell the Jedi Council how you got so furious with the first person who tried to kill me, you ran off for revenge and left me to deal with the other five?”

She swats him once more, this time striking his bared chest. Her hand lands. It doesn’t rise again, instead tracing along the lightly defined musculature. Tracing steadily down.

“I’m glad I did,” she says plainly, arriving at his belt buckle. “Otherwise I might still think your only asset was your acid tongue.”

“And here I thought you liked my tongue.”

“Despite what you think, talking isn’t its best use.”

A snap, and Hux’s buckle comes undone. Rey efficiently steals his retort from his lips, converting it to a low sigh of delight.

“A pity,” he murmurs, all his sharp elocution gone as he barely shapes the words. “Despite your charm, you’ve no respect for negotiation.”

“Master Ben,” she replies at the precise moment when she pulls his hips flush against her, at the instant they come wholly together, “says negotiations are irrelevant if you’re good enough with a saber.”

He moans now, stifling the sound against the smooth skin of her shoulder as other voices pass too close by in the hallway. Their noise is further muffled by the rich clothes the Damerons have piled up all around the conveniently sized dresser and the rest of the closet. Rey planned this particular ambush carefully.

“I could teach your Master Ben a thing or two.”

She scoffs, tangling her ankles behind his waist and her hands in his coiffed hair. She digs her fingers deep, laying waste to its gelled style, twisting just how he likes it. In response Hux rakes his nails down her back, seemingly careless— just how she likes it.

“You, my angel.” His voice dips suggestively, lips brushing her ear. “You could teach him things too.”

On grasping his insinuation, she flushes crimson.

“Master Ben has no interest in—” Rey suddenly pulls back, eyes wide. “Ben’s here.” 

Hux frowns. “He’s back on Coruscant?” 

“He’s _here_ ,” she hisses, frozen in place. “I felt him, he just got out of the turbolift.”

Hux takes in this information, incorporates it into the endless battle plan forever evolving in his head. Then he begins to move again in minute thrusts, the dresser creaking ever so slightly beneath them.

Rey’s jaw drops. “You’re mad!”

“Says the girl who just spent six months on Hosnia,” he snaps, “trying to get herself killed.”

“But—”

“But nothing. I’m not letting you out of my sight the rest of this year,” Hux finishes in a sudden rush.

She drops a hand to cup his cheek, and he pauses once more. 

“I was just doing my duty,” she says, earnest and tender.

“Do you understand...” He swallows hard and grabs for his armor, the mask he tries so hard to wear even when they’re undressed. “Do you understand if you had died on Hosnia, I would’ve had to blow up the entire system to get revenge?”

“I wasn’t going to die—”

“Do you _understand,”_ Hux enunciates, once again in command of himself, “what that would’ve done to my schedule?”

She laughs outright, and he yields to a smile.

“He’s looking for me, right now.” Rey can feel Ben stumbling around, out of place amidst the glitzy crowds, unable to quite place her in the mental chaos.

She can feel the instant Hux’s recklessness overtakes his good sense. He dives back in, running his lips down the length of her neck. “Let him.”

“He’ll catch us,” she says, red-cheeked and breathless. “He’ll turn me in to the Jedi Council and it’ll be the scandal of the century—”

“And I’ll rescue you and spirit you back to Arkanis, and keep you wet all the time—”

“Or maybe he’ll find me and run me through with his saber right here, before we ever make it to the Council—”

“Or,” he pants out, their words and their rhythms both speeding, “he’ll simply join in the festivities.”

“Ben would never,” she protests as always. “He’d never break the Jedi vow—”

“You’ve no idea how he looks at you.”

Normally she’d protest. Now she merely tosses her head back and moans.

“You’d like it,” he says. “The both of us at your mercy—”

“He’s coming—”

“Both worshipping as you deserve—”

“He’s so close—”

There comes a clanking of boots, of Ben Solo’s boots clanking down the corridor just outside.

“So close,” Hux repeats in a ruined gasp.

At that second the bell tolls and marks the new year, and in its musical rumble and the cheers that go up across Coruscant they find a minute of freedom. Loud, they’re loud as the fireworks go off and no one can hear them, no one can know how Rey rockets towards pleasure so intense it dizzies her, how she loses herself and finds she’s a new woman in her Senator’s arms. No one knows how they come apart, then fall back together in the afterglow.

The last chime passes them by, locked in a mellow silver kiss.

“Hey.” She’s quiet from contentment now, not necessity. “I never mean all those things I say. About Ben.”

Hux raises an eyebrow. “Not in the slightest?”

“I have a vow to keep too,” Rey replies solemnly.

He nods even as he pulls back to recover his robe and rearrange his hair, as she summons her Jedi tunic back to her hand.

“Happy new year, Armitage.”

He looks up at her, the perfect model of the heartless Senator if she didn’t know that sparkle in his eye.

“Happy anniversary, Mrs. Hux.”


End file.
